Head / Director Training & Development

Requirements:

• 8-15 years of experience in Learning and Development / Training, with demonstrated experience building an L& D function/framework from scratch (not inheriting or scaling an already-mature setup).
• Prior experience at a mid-size or startup deep-tech company strongly preferred (SaaS, product engineering, AI/ML, hardware-software, or similar technology-first environments).
• Proven track record of designing internal competency frameworks and training content in-house, with minimal use of external trainers/vendors.
• Experience training technical and non-technical teams alike (engineering, product, GTM functions).

Education:

• Bachelor's degree required; MBA/PGDM in HR, Organisational Development, or related field preferred.
• Certifications in Instructional Design, Competency Mapping, or Learning Architecture (e. g., ATD, CIPD) are a plus but not mandatory; practical building experience matters more than certifications.

Skills and Attributes:

• Strong instructional design and curriculum development skills (in-house content creation, not curation of purchased content).
• Ability to conduct ground-level skill gap analysis directly with teams/managers.
• Strong stakeholder management, comfortable working closely with engineering/product leaders to understand technical skill needs.
• High ownership and "zero-to-one" builder mindset; thrives in ambiguity without existing processes or playbooks.
• Excellent facilitation, communication, and content-creation skills.
• Data-oriented, comfortable defining and tracking L& D metrics and demonstrating training ROI.
• Resourceful and cost-conscious, able to build effective training with limited budgets, typical of startup/mid-size environments.